Memo #5- Dizzy Drama: The Confusing World of Teaching Playwriting

Yet again time has gotten the best of me. I was unable to contact people who developed outside playwriting programs around the state. I was hoping to see why they created these programs and what their reasoning’s are for teaching students how to write plays.

There was one good deal of information that came out of this week and that was when I did a workshop for the Week of the Arts at Seton Academy in Central Falls. I had borrowed the workshop that was presented at the Rhode Island Writing Project Conference: Dizzy Drama. For those of you not familiar with what that is here is a brief rundown. Each student must create a character on their own. From then they are told that they will have to incorporate that character and other student’s characters into a skit. They are already assigned a setting and a prop that they must use in their skit. 

I adapted the workshop for my age group (4^th and 5^th graders) and I focused the workshop on character building and skit writing. I gave the students time to create characters from the worksheet I was given. Then I made each of the students get into group (that I assigned) and create their short skit. The workshop ran for about an hour and forty-five minutes. 

At the end I gave them a survey to fill out and here are the results: 10 out of the 11 students said that they enjoyed the workshop. Most of the students chose this workshop over others because they are interested in theatre arts. None of them chose it because of playwriting in particular. I asked the students if they even enjoyed any type of writing (I made this question very vague). 6 said that they enjoy writing, 1 students said they did not enjoy writing, and 4 said that they “kind of” enjoyed writing. Out of the 6 students that said they enjoyed writing 2 said that they would not want to do this kind of writing in school. Out of the 4 students that kind of enjoyed writing 2 said that they would not want to do this in school. Of course, the person who did not like writing did not want to do this type of writing in school too. 

Something I had posted last time from one of my source was that students who are not exposed to plays don’t have much to draw on. These students had only seen about one or two shows each and that was reflected in the work that they produced. If I were to do this workshop again I would focus more on theatrical aspects of it rather than the writing. The students need to understand theatre before they can create it. I also doubt at such a young age that these students had even been introduced to what a script looks like.

I have been lacking in secondary sources again. I found a magazine from 1999 titled: Creative Drama Magazine- A resource for drama educators. Underneath that are the words “Students as Playwrights.” Inside are lessons to do with students to develop their skills as playwrights. They have helpful hints for teachers as well as many sources that show students should be learning this in the classroom. 

I know now from my research that teacher do not have the time to teach playwriting because of mandatory state testing. They need to look to outside sources to come in. I have also learned that not every student is going to love writing and that is ok. As long as they can retain the skills to be successful in life that is all we can hope. I would still like to still talk to outside playwriting sources to see their outlook on the topic. What frustrates me is that teachers want to bring the creative arts into the classroom but do not have the time or resources to do so. I hope to find a few more secondary sources to round out my research. Teaching theatre arts to children can be a long but very rewarding process. It is getting them started early that is the hard part.

Memo #4- "Writing is a marathon"

Contrary to what I thought prior to this week, my finding have been quite extraordinary. Since last week I have been thinking about how I was going to get in contact with my various people to interview them. Somehow life just has a way of working itself out.

I met with Dr. Ann O' Grady, executive director of Rhode Island Youth Theatre. Her and I have worked together for the past 6 years and she is my ultimate source when it comes to anything theatrical. With both of our busy schedules it seemed impossible to meet, but because I needed to rent some costumes from her I was able to meet at her house and interview her for my I-Search.

A little background about her. She taught in the Warwick School Department for 29 years (1971-2000) at Aldrich Junior High School. I asked her if in her many years of teaching if she ever did any playwriting with her students? She told me that she did. Her students had created a musical one time about hunger. They all collaborated in writing it, designing the sets, picking the costumes, and eventually performing the show. She said that there are many benefits to playwriting in the classroom, like research skills, teamwork, and learning a different form of art, but she says that these are moments that stick with children; these are moments that make an impact on their lives. She also taught them prepositions, but when they see her now some of her students still remember their lines, not prepositions. This project, she told me, was done over the course of 6-8 months. "Writing is a marathon," she emphasizes.  I would have to agree. We talk about the writing process and here it is being used in a different format than the five paragraph essay.

My next find was quite amazing actually. After posting the video last week on the Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School in New York I decided to take Professor Collins advice and try to contact Shannon Reed the English teacher at the school who headed this playwriting project. I first went to the high school's website, but found nothing on faculty there. I went back to her blog she had posted, but again no contact information. I searched high and low for some way to contact this teacher. I even tried to connect to her on Linkedln. Finally I just did a general google search for her name and she had her own website. I saw a link on her page that said CONTACT ME, and so i emailed her asking if she would take part in my I-Search project. She responded in less than 24 hours saying she would be delighted to help. I sent her a list of about 15 questions and she responded back with full detailed answers. Although I would love to copy and paste her answers, a brief summary will do for now.

She told me that she has been teaching for 8 years. She has taught 6th grade through 12th grade. She loves theatre and got her undergraduate in acting and directing. She was told by someone that she should start writing plays, so she did, they got produced and she had been hooked ever since. Since BTAHS had an arts integrated curriculum she wanted to find another way to teach writing since her students did not seem to want to do your traditional five paragraph essay: "in general the students there were interested in expressing themselves but were bored by (or flatly refused to do) typical English assignments like writing essays or papers. I thought they may like playwriting, though, and I was right!" She says that she thinks many teachers don't teach playwriting because it is not something themselves they feel comfortable with. She also says that playwriting can be difficult if students have not read and seen plays. Ann agrees saying that students will usually copy things they see when creating and are usually inspired by a show they have seen. A benefit Shannon sees in playwrting is the ability to express yourself creatively. Her students were so much more engaged so therefore they wrote more and in turn learned more. She is no longer at BTAHS and is now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. She does not do any playwriting in her college level class because the curriculum is pretty much set. 

These two professionals have really opened my eyes to the impact that playwriting can have on children. I see now that not may teachers are doing playwriting in schools nowadays. I want to look now at resources that teachers can find outside the classroom. Since most teachers probably don't feel comfortable that could be why they are inviting in the experts. I hope to find out what these young playwriting companies are doing for students.

Playwriting+Science = Amazing I-Search Findings

I recently stumbled across this and felt as though I had to share it here. Below you will find a video of what these two teachers did. They took both playwriting and science and made it work in the classroom. Maybe playwriting isn't dead after all. They also have a blog (Who knew blogs could be so useful). Finding this has definitely made me a happy researcher.




THEIR BLOG

Memo #3- To Whom This May Concern...

I knew this would eventually happen that my life would over flood me with things and make it hard to complete this I-Search successfully. I wanted to visit my old drama/ English teacher at my high school. I figured he knew me and working both with English and theatre at the high school I thought he could give me a true insight on my topic. Well, I have run out of time for that. I work everyday from 7-6 and lost his email some odd years ago.

Being an actor though I am always taught to think on my toes and make light of every situation and seize every opportunity. Recently I picked up another task to add to my list of things to accomplish. I am taking over someones part in a musical. I had two weeks to learn the role and he just opened this past weekend. As I got to know the cast I found out that one of the people in the cast was an English/ theatre teacher at a local high school. I was thrilled to hear this and I interviewed her in the middle of the show (talk about multitasking). Here is what I found out:

She has been teaching for 11 years. She first taught at Narragansett High School and now as Smithfield High School. She has taught  grades 9-12. I first asked her what plays she taught in her classes. She answered that she taught Shakespeare, The Crucible, and Fences. I then asked her if she ever did any playwriting in class. She said that she does not do playwriting in her class or any type of creative writing for that matter. She went on to say that her students did mostly academic writing and that with the new Common Core standards she was unable to do this type of exercise in a classroom. She told me that she also taught a drama class. I asked her if she did playwriting in that class and she said that her students want to act out plays more than write them. I asked her if she thought their was any advantages to playwriting? She told me that it could expose students to another genre of writing as well as expose them to theatre all together.

Her interview was very helpful but I want to get more feedback from educators. I hope to ask my cooperating teacher in my FNED 546 placement since she also teaches a drama elective and is an Enlgish teacher. Hopefully since she works at a charter school her answers may vary from my first teacher who worked in a public high school. I will also hope to interview my students and see their thoughts on writing plays. I am also participating in the "Week of the Arts' at a school in Central Falls. I am helping the students develop skits so hopefully I can get some feedback from them to see if they enjoy this type of creative expression through playwriting.

Memo #2 "Art is a Personal Adventure"

When I dove into the scholarly world to find what the experts were saying about my topic, I found little to be discovered. Their were very few articles and essays written on playwriting in the classroom. I was able to pull up at least two sources that really spoke to the topic well and for that I was very grateful.

The first article I came across was cleverly named, "Playwriting in the High-School Classroom." I was thrilled I had found an article of good length that actually spoke to the topic I was searching for. I started reading the article and realized that the dates they were mentioning seemed rather old, but I kept reading. I was about half way through when I looked at the publishing date. The article was published in May of 1938! I couldn't believe it, one of my main articles and it was completely outdated being written 75 years prior to today. I figured I was half way through so I figured I would finish the article. What I found was astonishing. Although the article was outdated so much of what it talked about rang true to today.

The author is Caroline Power was a high school teacher at University High School in Oakland, California. She speaks the truth about the art of playwriting. She talks about dialogue: "Dialogue never bothers a beginner. He never sees any reason to be worried about talk. And on the whole-- if his characters are real to him-- is alive" (Power 404). She goes back to one of our concepts we brought up in class, that writing should be fun. When we stop thinking and just start doing is when we produce our best work. She mentions the writing process in her article saying, "Product is less important than the process that goes on inside the writer" (Power 406). Even back in 1938 scholars were aware that writing should be about the process more than the product.

The other article was titled: "Writing Plays in the Composition Classroom." This article was not as old as my first but still slightly out of date being written about 30 years ago. Gilman Tracy the author states that "One of the problem inherent in any composition course is the students' lack of feel for an audience" (Tracy 65). This speaks true to today in our writing classrooms. Teachers want students to develop this sense of audience. of "who are they writing for." Tracy goes on to explain how playwriting can helps students develop these understands. 

So what I have found through these two sources so far is that playwriting, at one time or another, was important and being taught to some capacity. The decline seems to have happened around the time Ronald Reagan proposed his "A Nation at Risk." I would research this further to see if creative writing (as well as other forms of theatrical expression) in the classroom all started declining at the start of the Reagan era.

Memo #1- Theatre is my Life

I chose this topic because theatre is my life. I love theatre and it is one of my many passions in life. Of course, we can never find the answers that lie right in front of our noses so it took me a while to reach this topic. I first wanted to focus on the connection between college writing and high school writing. I was going to look at high schools that taught classes that students would get college credit for. After I thought about it for a while I realized that was not a topic I was extremely passionate about. I delve into other topics that had to do with college writing. Although I love working in an academic department within my college the idea of comparing high school and college writing did nothing for me. Finally once I stopped thinking so hard (and had a nice sit down with some professors,) I finally came up with my topic. 

I have been involved in theatre for many years now. I not only perform in local community productions around the state I also, work for a theatrical summer camp and constantly direct theatrical afterschool programs around the state. We can easily say that theatre and children are not an unknown realm to me. I direct a lot of these programs where our main purpose or function is to put on a show. I am usually the creative mastermind behind the show; so many times though I see students who want to contribute to the creative process. Young people are very creative. My boss at Rhode Island Youth Theatre where I do the summer camp had developed this program call “Young Playwrights.” I remember growing up and always trying to write plays but I never knew how. I had read many in classes (mostly Shakespeare) but we never once had a lesson on how to construct a play. What a wonderful idea for students to write plays and perform them for their class or even their schools or communities. This “Young Playwrights” program is an outside affiliate to the public school system. I want to see playwriting brought into the classroom. I always loved to write, but as I got older my love of writing died but my love of theatre grew and maybe if in school we had an assignment where we could write a play I may have learned to love writing again. The arts are a wonderful way for students to express themselves and I feel as though bringing playwriting into the classroom is a wonderful way for student to creatively interact with the arts through writing.

I-Search Project Video Overview

Welcome All! Here is the first step in my journey to find out if schools are teaching playwriting in the classroom. I have created a short video to show you what my project will be about. Please enjoy!
Playwriting in the Classroom